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I think it'd be great to see Alinghi back in the game. Yes, they did some really shitty things pre 2010, but since then they have maintained a great brand and team and have had much success in multihull competitions all over the world. They have had huge and consistent success in the ESS, The GC32 series and the Bol d' or Mirabaud. They have a lot of history in the AC, and they deserve to be back in the game. Luna Rossa, Alinghi, BAR, Artemis, an Australian team, a U.S team (maybe Oracle), Team France, I think we'll see a spanish team as well.

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I think it'd be great to see Alinghi back in the game. Yes, they did some really shitty things pre 2010, but since then they have maintained a great brand and team and have had much success in multihull competitions all over the world. They have had huge and consistent success in the ESS, The GC32 series and the Bol d' or Mirabaud. They have a lot of history in the AC, and they deserve to be back in the game. Luna Rossa, Alinghi, BAR, Artemis, an Australian team, a U.S team (maybe Oracle), Team France, I think we'll see a spanish team as well.

I am not sure that I would like to se them. I never trusted them and I still don't trust them. AC33 gaves deep scares.

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I think it'd be great to see Alinghi back in the game. Yes, they did some really shitty things pre 2010, but since then they have maintained a great brand and team and have had much success in multihull competitions all over the world. They have had huge and consistent success in the ESS, The GC32 series and the Bol d' or Mirabaud. They have a lot of history in the AC, and they deserve to be back in the game. Luna Rossa, Alinghi, BAR, Artemis, an Australian team, a U.S team (maybe Oracle), Team France, I think we'll see a spanish team as well.

Nah fuck Ernie and Lazza. They don't deserve to be within a thousand miles of the cup.

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Following the News that AC 36 will be raced in Monohulls here is how I see it:

Teams (NO for AC 36)

Oracle Team USA = Likely No

SoftBank Team Japan = Likely No

Artemis Racing = Lean No (TT would have the money but Nat. Requirement could/will play havoc with the Team)

Groupama Team France = Likely No

Teams up in the air (YES; Maybe for AC 36)

Land Rover BAR (Does Ben have enough money to get to the Start Line?)

Australian Challenger headed by Spithill, Slingsby, Lankford, NO and Iain Jensen....(Can Slingers, Jimmy convince someone from Oz to sponsor them?)

Different US Team (would have to be sponsored by the DeVos or Ricketts Family)

Team Alinghi (Would have preferred a Cat; Ernesto has the Money to challenge but does he have the Sailors & Designers?)

Teams (YES for AC 36)

ETNZ (Defender)

LR (CoR)

Final Takeaway:

Here is a direct Quote from little old GD just before AC 34 in San Francisco got started "The ridiculous costs needed to be absolutely nailed on the head".

The irony of his Quote is this: While the Defender of the 35th AC OTUSA tried everything to bring the costs down so that more Teams could participate (BAR, SBTJ, France) like little old Grant wanted it's become apparent that the costs for a Team wanting to challenge for AC 36 will go up (almost spike to epic porportions) and not come down more.

My currently guess estimate would be that any Challenger who is serious about winning AC 36 assuming ETNZ/LR allowing 2 Boats to be built would need a Budget between $ 150-180m to have a shot. How many future Sponsors are willing to pay this much of money?

If you look back at the last AC that had been held in AUCK (AC 31) only 3 Teams (Challengers) had a real shot at winning...Alinghi, Oracle and OneWorld....all other Teams were just making up Numbers to make the Event look good. Things are different now. 2008 the World had the most horrendous Financial Crisis. The Economy isn't booming. I'd rather doubt a Sponsor would pay money just to participate.

You have a history of being wrong in every post you've ever shit out here...

why don't you wait until the protocol is unveiled before wildly guessing, Groupama and SoftBank sponsored teams in the last AC knowing they had zero chance of winning the cup...

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Where are the Japanese Sailors? They ain't there. I want a strong AC 36 where every Team that enters has a chance of winning. No way Groupama or SoftBank is pumping 100m+ into a Team just to be there.

So you want something that has never happened in the history of the AC, every team to have an equal chance of winning, and you want it now because NZ has the cup...in every sport there are teams with smaller budgets and no chance of winning, but that doesn't stop them entering the competition..

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So you want something that has never happened in the history of the AC, every team to have an equal chance of winning, and you want it now because NZ has the cup...in every sport there are teams with smaller budgets and no chance of winning, but that doesn't stop them entering the competition..

A4E was speaking of over 100 millions budgets, you know what you used to complained about RC plans, did you change your mind ?

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A4E was speaking of over 100 millions budgets, you know what you used to complained about RC plans, did you change your mind ?

I have never complained about how much it costs to race for the AC, it's always been about finding the money and building the best boat to win it..lazza has spent the most money and hired the best lawyers and has lost it to a better team..

Your new best friend has now pulled a $180M budget out of his arse to win it but now wants all the teams to have an equal chance to win..

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T-C, not only did ro! change his mind about 100 million budgets, Grant Dalton did too.

ETNZ will lose their beloved Cup AGAIN because they didn't control the costs of this thing called AC. It may or may not happen in 2021 but it will happen down the road because at some Point a billionaire will come, pumping some $ 200m+ into a Team and snatch it from the Kiwis unless they limit Teams to a certain budget.

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Budgets are going to really blow out this time around. It always happens when there is a new rule and there is no way of limiting it. Worse, they are talking about boats that will need more sailors and that is going to jack up costs as well.

Will they limit teams to 1 boat? I would be very surprised with a brand new concept. In the last cup, without the 45' surrogates, it would have been impossible to develop the boats. There won't be any surrogates and to only have a single shot at designing a winning boat would be a huge risk for the people making the rules, so why would they. The only way they could do it is if there is a large element of one design.

Even if they say you cannot sail 2 boats at a time, the increases in crew crew size will probably add $10-15m to a campaign budget alone. Design teams are going to need to be bigger because you have to design the platforms as well. You are going to need a sail budget that i suspect will exceed the costs of the wings. I find it hard to see any area where you will save money compared with the last campaign. I also suspect that housing the teams in NZ will be more expensive than it was in Bermuda.

Will $100m cut it next time? I think that is a minimum but some will spend way more. Spending doesn't guarantee winning, but under spending does put you at a disadvantage.

OR-Xerox won't challenge in AC36, for the simple reason Larry doesn't want to be humiliated again so soon after AC35. They have never been competitive when they've had to qualify through a Challenger Selection Series. And even with the massive design head-start advantage they had over the Challengers in AC34 and AC35, they were lucky to defend in 2013 and had their butts reamed in Bermuda even after gaming the rules to disadvantage the eventual winner.

They were lucky that Bertarelli handed them the DoG opportunity in 2010 otherwise they would still be also-rans...

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ETNZ will make the biggest savings because most of the 90 odd people that they will employ are already living with their families in Auckland.

ETNZ have also demonstrated that you do not need to develop your boat at the sailing venue so teams like LRBAR will also make similar savings.

Teams like Oracle and Artemis will be at a disadvantage because they do not have a home and that's as it should be.

I really haven't got a clue what you are babbling on about! All I said is that it is going to cost a lot more to be in NZ than it is to be in Bermuda. I believe that it is fairly hard to compete in an event if you are not there and there will come a time when they will have to move to NZ.

I also don't really care if ETNZ save money. I am interested in what the costs are going to be for a challenging team and they are certainly going to be more than last time, probably by some way.

Another thing which will up costs is the comment made that some of the event will be in Italy. I guess the Italians will save a bit of money but for everybody else, it will have serious budget implications.

Spin it however you want, it is hard to get away from the fact this time around teams will need deep pockets. That's not a complaint because that is the AC. It is a fact and one that will impact the number of teams that enter.

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I also don't really care if ETNZ save money. I am interested in what the costs are going to be for a challenging team and they are certainly going to be more than last time, probably by some way.

------ snip ------

Another thing which will up costs is the comment made that some of the event will be in Italy. I guess the Italians will save a bit of money but for everybody else, it will have serious budget implications..

You may not care if ETNZ save themselves money but we can be confident that ETNZ care.

As for the challenging teams why on earth would ETNZ be concerned about their costs .. I seem to recall that five teams voted against a planned event in Auckland which had the effect of reducing ETNZ's income .. I for one am delighted that their attempt to eliminate ETNZ has backfired.

We don't really know if an event will be held in Italy .. wait for the protocol to come out.

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Because they are screwed if not enough challengers turn up to justify taxpayer input to team and event costs.

Do you think so? .. Event costs will go up if there are a lot of entrants .. for all you know they might have a series in Italy to reduce the number of entrants while ETNZ carry on with their development in Auckland.

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Because they are screwed if not enough challengers turn up to justify taxpayer input to team and event costs.

Dream on LOL!! The success of AC36 will not depend on the OR-Xerox poodles challenging. The cheaters won't challenge because they don't want to be humiliated again. Groupama and Japan? Waste of space. Artemis? Maybe..

Whatever our government contributes to AC36 will be money well spent, with the world-wide exposure the AC generates easily quantifiable. Don't compare Auckland to that con-job Russ and Larry did on Bermuda.

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Teams spending money in AUK is a driver of the business case. Qualifiers in Italy? well we shall see. I'd be surprised when the intent to capture team spending in NZ. Yes it's confirmed there will be something in Italy, my WAG is that will be some kind of ACTS.

Russell Coutts, now back in Auckland, has stated in an e-mail to me: “My understanding is that Oracle/Larry will not be entering.”

"It would appear that one Rich American Called Larry Ellison has had enough – the cost of the Cup has proved too high even for him. Which leaves one to wonder just who will show up?"

I hope I'm wrong, but it seems to me that the Kiwis are narrowing the field down to an insanely narrow bunch:

The nationality rules knock out most potential teams and leave really only France, UK, Italy, US, NZ, Australia, plus a few others at the margins (Sweden, Spain, etc).

The location and need to have the races in the European and US night time, in winter, knock out any teams relying on sponsorship that relies on a positive ROI, e.g. not vanity sponsorship. That decimates a slew of US/Eur sponsors such as Groupama, MAPFRE, etc.

The cost of building a new platform and being competitive knocks out anyone who can't commit Larry-level dollars and Larry-level technology.

So here's my depressing prediction for teams making it to the line:

ENTZ

Luna Rosa

One Aussie team backed 75/25 by private/sponsorship dollars

That's it. I think that Sir Ben will try but will find that Land Rover is only willing to chip in a few bucks and will come up short on raising the rest. I think that one or two US billionaires will toy with it but will ultimately decide that they cannot be competitive on a new platform in such a short period of time.

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As for the challenging teams why on earth would ETNZ be concerned about their costs ..

This surprises me. If ETNZ show no concern for costs, then it will prove once and for all that Dalton is a hypocrite and that he says things he doesn't believe in just to wind people up. You cannot spend years attacking others for allowing costs to spiral out of control and trying to buy the cup and then not care about costs when you are in control. I think Dalton is a better man than that., but clearly his supporters aren't

Russell Coutts, now back in Auckland, has stated in an e-mail to me: “My understanding is that Oracle/Larry will not be entering.”

TE is a touch less convinced than Fisher, and maybe RC. Italics mine:

"As I said in the post here on SI earlier this week with my take on the number of teams/countries for AC36, never count Larry out. That doesn't mean that I think he will muster another challenge, but it is too early to tell. Everyone, including Larry, is waiting for the Protocol to be issued by RNZYS and CNDS, promised later this month."

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"It would appear that one Rich American Called Larry Ellison has had enough – the cost of the Cup has proved too high even for him. Which leaves one to wonder just who will show up?"

Larry is many things but stupid is not one of them. He had his chance to win the Auld Mug handed to him by Bertarelli's fake CoR and Larry used the power of his financial muscle to win the DoG match. Leveraging their AC33 multihull "experience", they opted to go with AC72 multis in AC34 - that did not go too well for them even with all their "experience" and they barely squeaked home. For AC35, they stayed with multis but manipulated the rules to give themselves every advantage they could - still was not enough.

Larry knows his AC history painfully well - he's never been competitive going through a Challenger Selection Series, and with AC36 confirmed to be in monohulls he clearly does not want to be humiliated again.

Good riddance!!

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It would be interesting to know what else besides the boat type GD sold out to P$B in that 2015 deal he took. We also now know that it included racing in Italy but: It may even have included a 3rd AC cycle of design sharing, which on top of the likely 3 or more times bigger budget between LR and ETNZ could spell trouble for GD. What else? For one, P$B sounded insistent that the Protocol details he'd agreed to would get announced this month.. What happens if that deal gets broken? What happens if the Protocol then gets changes?

'The Devil Wears Prada' ?

Pete Burling said a 'step back' to monohulls would be a mistake, there could be plenty of problems ahead due to that deal made 'with the devil.' Does anyone think GA, multiple-time multihull World Champion and wing-sail trimmer extraordinaire was happy to find out what P$B has announced?

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It would be interesting to know what else besides the boat type GD sold out to P$B in that 2015 deal he took. We also now know that it included racing in Italy but: It may even have included a 3rd AC cycle of design sharing, which on top of the likely 3 or more times bigger budget between LR and ETNZ could spell trouble for GD. What else? For one, P$B sounded insistent that the Protocol details he'd agreed to would get announced this month.. What happens if that deal gets broken? What happens if the Protocol then gets changes?

'The Devil Wears Prada' ?

Pete Burling said a 'step back' to monohulls would be a mistake, there could be plenty of problems ahead due to that deal made 'with the devil.' Does anyone think GA, multiple-time multihull World Champion and wing-sail trimmer extraordinaire was happy to find out what P$B has announced?

Well there is certainly going to be some design collaboration given that they are seemingly designing the class of boat together...

They will certainly have created a design that conforms to the new rules during this process, where as everyone else may just get the specifications for it.

The guy I hope most from his team to get a role in AC36 is JS, whose book arrived in my mailbox today.

He's last years news at best, (hopefully a better author than helm), but it's clear some Ozzies can see the future even if you can't and are talking instead to the guy who should have been helming in AC35

13 hours ago, Tornado-Cat said:

GD will have to bend, otherwise P$B could make their signed agreement public, which could imply legal options from other teams.

Showing off your incisive lawyer's skills again TC?

PB said monos, monos it is, the rest is clearly still being worked out by those best fit, so Protocol in September, with some ACClass generalities - details to follow.....

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Paying attention to you with regards to this is akin to asking Doug for advice on AC50 foils. *yawn*

Jaysper, instead of trying to parrot ro!, perhaps you could try to tell us something interesting, I just received a photo taken by friends of GD in front of Lac de Genvève this morning, was he there to buy chocolate ?

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I doubt GD will bend over on anything else, but it is very clear to me that the choice of monohull vs multihull is out of his hands and that decision was made by Bertelli. From there on, i suspect and hope it is a proper negotiated protocol as I don't think GD would allow anything else.

My fear is that in an attempt to not look like they have stepped from the 21st century back to the 19th century, they don't go for something that is so radical that it makes a fast boat but a shit match racer. It is an irony that the slower the boats, the better the match racing.

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Jaysper, instead of trying to parrot ro!, perhaps you could try to tell us something interesting, I just received a photo taken by friends of GD in front of Lac de Genvève this morning, was he there to buy chocolate ?

Firstly it's impossible for me to parrot ro!mo because I have him on ignore.

Secondly what the fuck has that to do with your yet again bullshit assertion that GD is bending over?

It's like me saying "Bob eats spaghetti, therefore American tanks are the best".

See the link? No, not do I. Same with your current line of dribble.

Just shit stirring. To what end is what I can't figure out.

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I doubt GD will bend over on anything else, but it is very clear to me that the choice of monohull vs multihull is out of his hands and that decision was made by Bertelli. From there on, i suspect and hope it is a proper negotiated protocol as I don't think GD would allow anything else.

Events in Italy is something that P$B also announced as part of his deal.. Which could be interesting considering the timeline and the CiC rules he also referenced.

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Events in Italy is something that P$B also announced as part of the deal.. Which could be interesting considering the timeline and the CiC rules he also referenced.

What is the shipping time between NZ and Italy?

I don't see that as bending over. Based on the past, I think that GD would see it as OK to have an event in Italy. It would be very hypocritical to have complained so much about the lack of opportunity for TNZ and not agree to it in Italy.

It does throw up a number of interesting challenges. I think the shipping will be something like 5 weeks but for any team not based in europe, you will lose time shipping the boat to Italy. I doubt you could fly the new class (too wide). This is another reason i believe we will see 2 boats per team. NZ will lose something like 10 weeks if they don't have 2 boats.

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I don't see that as bending over. Based on the past, I think that GD would see it as OK to have an event in Italy. It would be very hypocritical to have complained so much about the lack of opportunity for TNZ and not agree to it in Italy.

It does throw up a number of interesting challenges. I think the shipping will be something like 5 weeks but for any team not based in europe, you will lose time shipping the boat to Italy. I doubt you could fly the new class (too wide). This is another reason i believe we will see 2 boats per team. NZ will lose something like 10 weeks if they don't have 2 boats.

Why do you assume that ETNZ would attend a regatta in Italy? .. They can have a regatta for the challengers in Italy and ETNZ can use the time to develop their boats in New Zealand which is where the AC will take place.

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Funny how the gang of 5 was such a bad idea and the gang of 2 such a good one.

Funny how teams spending under RC was such a bad idea and such a good one with GD.

I remember your other complaints, are you going to increase the list ?

Just turning my words around does not make you right...the gang of five was not right, they tried to disadvantage TNZ and LR and perpetuate a protocol that no one watched or cared about but kept sailors employed for the foreseeable future..

I don't care about budgets and keeping costs to a minimum..it's the AC and it's expensive to play...if that's a PB win it's ok...lazza had his turn and with russes help fucked it up, TNZ beat them, it's thier turn, let's see what happens...

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Why do you assume that ETNZ would attend a regatta in Italy? .. They can have a regatta for the challengers in Italy and ETNZ can use the time to develop their boats in New Zealand which is where the AC will take place.

It would take a very stupid CoR to agree to that. Why would you give the defender such a huge advantage of not losing shipping time? The only reason why Bertelli wants an event in Italy is for commercial benefits and it wouldn't be much of an event without the defender.

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It would take a very stupid CoR to agree to that. Why would you give the defender such a huge advantage of not losing shipping time? The only reason why Bertelli wants an event in Italy is for commercial benefits and it wouldn't be much of an event without the defender.

The concept of the defender racing against the challengers at a foreign venue started with Oracle and hopefully it will end with ETNZ.

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The concept of the defender racing against the challengers at a foreign venue started with Oracle and hopefully it will end with ETNZ.

You are incorrect on that one. Go check your history (even back in the 12M days). It wouldn't be the defender racing against the challenger, because what really counts is that they won't be using their race boats. It will also depend on format. There are a number of ways they can structure an event using the new class and not break that tradition,